]]>Drunk and faltering
in my midnight chair,
someone gripped me
by the hair and raised my head.
I saw St. Theresa of Avila,
with St. John of the Cross and Rumi
by her side, arm in arm.
And then through the door behind them
came Rabia Al-Basri and Bashõ,
all with garish, wine-drenched smiles,
blood-purple lips.
They asked me, “What are you doing?”
and I said “No, what are you doing?”
They said, “We are drunk on the wine of the beloved.”
I said, “I am drunk but have no beloved.”
St. Theresa pulled my hair harder
and said, “Oh, yes you do!”–
and smothered me
with her wine-soured mouth.

]]>2148“Well, John and Henry were the most common names for freed slaves, so if there was a record of him, it wouldn’t mean that he was the John Henry”https://linebreak.org/poems/well-john-henry-common-names-freed-slaves-record-wouldnt-mean-john-henry/
Fri, 31 Mar 2017 22:13:55 +0000https://linebreak.org/?post_type=poem&p=2142— Title quotation taken from Colson Whitehead’s “John Henry Days” John Henry […]

John Henry is every black man. John Henry is every black man trying to breathe. John Henry is every black man willing to jump in front of a train to keep his job. John Henry is every black man who spent his life on the lookout for the man when he should have been on the lookout for the machine. John Henry is every black man with bleeding hands. John Henry is every black man who made white folks sing sad songs about how hard it is to be white and watch black folks die. John Henry is every black man with a wife in three states. John Henry is every black man who knows “retirement” is just another name for death in his neighborhood. John Henry is every black man dying to leave something more than a scar on the earth. John Henry is every black man flexing in the mirror and not knowing if he should be proud or terrified.

]]>I welcomed the woman.
I put a towel on my bed
and lay down. I told her
my burns were tender,
but what I meant was
I still haven’t decided
what my definition
of privacy is. I told her
I want to know more
about my legs,
but I meant to say
release them.
Please release them.
She held my kneecap
like a baby’s cheek.
She touched her cheek to mine,
the soft grind of skin,
as when I once rubbed
two light bulbs together.
She pressed me hard
into the mattress
until I slipped inside,
both above and beneath
a sheet of ice.
When she asked me how I liked it
I said I’m tired of feeling
punished. When she asked me
what I wanted, she answered
my silence with silence.

First he was, then he wasn’t, now he is. Always
and forever. None of this Get back up and dust those wings off, not like in The Godfather
when he’s told, “Can’t do it, Sally,” only to
show up a year later in The Don is Dead
and The Devil’s Daughter. Isn’t this just the way?
Everyone thinks we died when we’ve only
been languishing in a string of forgettable movies.
Tessio’s death was memorable for happening
quietly, off-screen. The horror of it
was the inevitability of it: the pageantry
of the six men surrounding him, pallbearers
shouldering him away in their solemn brown suits.
And isn’t that just the way? The worst
is not what comes, but what we can see coming,
the unfolding of the moment, whole lives
unspooled and slopped in a celluloid pool at our feet.
What kills us is Sal’s stoic desperation, the naked
dignity of his calm plea. We forget
his lack of faith, his weakness and betrayal.
We gaze into his sad Italian eyes, upon his long
Modigliani face, and we pity him the way
we pity Judas, the way we pity our own small
selfish selves, dying a little with each violence
we’ve committed until someone more ruthless
brings our suffering to an end.

]]>the exit’s not marked Post-
partum Seasonal Psychotic or the often
merrier Manic not half the frolic
of a holiday party whole nights
drowning in punch lines strong
orchestra of laughter to keep us from
crying over the on-ramp’s
stubborn curl ribbon a red loop
nuisance to tug un-loose back
at home with the heat left on
and your scarf like a noose no one
diagnoses generic danger
strangling us on a normal
basis unwrapping a new numb
not so formal it won’t come
buckle the small of your back
a caress snuck up and un-
seat belting out a welcome so
concrete who would not soften
who could not resist

]]>Shattered by heroin, Mal Waldron
listens to his own records
so he can remember his style.
The horns are lucid, Coltrane
in the bitterness of Don’t Explain,
Idries Suleiman noodling in dorian.
But the piano: who can understand it:
as if there were a template
it almost fits. He teaches
his elegant right hand to stumble.
He’ll play another forty years
to the same crowd of champagne flutes
and sardonic plainclothes, applause
will deafen him at the end,
the keys will grow old,
the idea will state itself,
the eviscerating joy will never return.

My son,
A man you knew twenty years ago
has died. His wife has cancer
and cannot travel home
for the funeral. You may remember
he took you camping once, water-skiing
on the Pearl River, far enough
from home to drink beer,
far enough to think I didn’t know.
This is the third time I’ve forwarded
an email like this to you
and I know each time you see
the subject line, you think
“Oh God” (the only time you still pray)
“it’s Dad or Grandma.” I know this.
I do it anyway.Not out of meanness.
What would I change it to? All the news
I get of people you knew when you
were one of us is of their deaths,
or that they’ve left the church,
lost faith after so many years.
Like you. Like the grandson
of the man in this email
who sinned at an inconvenient time,
and will watch this funeral alone
amid the congregation.
Like you will, when you come home.